


night time

by selysecousland (spareaegon)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry, It's not even that romantic, Tbh I'm bad at everything I haven't written in years, blood tw very briefly, or even that angsty imo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 18:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21103880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spareaegon/pseuds/selysecousland
Summary: Not everyone rests easy.  Not everyone deserves to.





	night time

**Author's Note:**

> this only happened because i can't sleep and started having lots of negative thoughts and figured i could pass them on to dima and maybe create something half nice out of a depressive episode yikes
> 
> anyways enjoy i'll write porn to make up for it maybe

The thoughts always got worse at night.

Not that they weren't difficult during the day - not that they weren't so loud, so oppressive that his allies' voices weren't drowned out by them before the sun had even crested over the trees. It was just that they were worse at night.

Perhaps it was the silence of the monestary pressing on his chest, cracking his ribs. Or perhaps it was the exhaustion, pulling at him until his fingers ached from being wrapped around a lance for far too long.

Maybe it was just because he knew he did not deserve to sleep.

After everything he had done, the death and suffering he had not just allowed, but facilitated, why should he ever be granted the silence of sleep again?

If only those fools, the ones he had once dared to think of as friends, could know the depths he had sunk to. They could spit upon him, turn their backs one by one and leave him to his ghosts, just as he deserved.

These were the same thoughts that came to him every night, swam around in his head until he was curled up on the floor like a beggar in the streets, shaking hands knotted in his matted hair. The images that swirled behind his eyelids, tightening his throat and pulling forth gasping sobs and pleas. The nights were worse, yes, but at least they allowed him to truly embrace what he had become.

-

And then she started appearing.

It had seemed an accident the first night. Perhaps she hadn't expected anyone to be out of their room so late at night. The way she sighed so heavily, not even glancing around for signs of life... He ought to have run her out of the pews then and there. But as much as he haunted this place, it was not his. He had no right to stop her, not when she was so much closer to the Goddess than any other ghost in the place, not when she was his...

She sat near the back of the chapel, head in her hands, speaking so low it must have been to...

"Sothis, please, if you can still hear me. What am I supposed to do? I don't know what to do." Her voice cracks, and he hates himself for listening in. Add it to the list of sins.

The second night, he's broken down, having spent the evening huddled in a corner arguing with his father. He covers his ears the moment he hears her sit, but strains them nonetheless.

"I don't... help him... please."

He squeezes his eye shut and curses himself repeatedly, silently, to ensure he drowns her out.

On night three, all she does is cry.

The raw emotion nearly stuns him into a functioning state: he feels a tugging in his chest that he had long thought forgotten, as if an invisible string had tied itself around his heart and every little sob pulled it closer to her.

He sat in silence, until the sobs turned to slow, even breaths. Then, he stood. 

The moonlight shining down on her mint hair through the cracks in the ceiling had placed a soft halo around her head where she slept, and every coherent thought in his mind evaporated at once. There were whispers, unintelligable as he slowly approached her, there was blood rushing in his ears as he unclasped his cloak, and then, oh Goddess, there was her voice. He bit his tongue to hold back a sob, and although he could not taste it, he knew he had pressed down too hard.

With her voice in his head and a mouth full of blood, he draped his cloak over Byleth and retreated to a corner, a trail of red dripping down his chin as sleep finally took him.


End file.
